Young Adults

Life House West Church, 1028 Salem Ave., Hagerstown, today from 7:30 to 11:30 a.m., there will be an all-you-can-eat breakfast. There will be pancakes, Hoffman's sausage and pudding, scrambled eggs, orange juice, coffee and water. Adult tickets cost $5.50. Tickets for those age 10 and younger cost $3. Salem United Methodist Church, Keedysville, this Sunday from 4 to 6 p.m., the young adults will present a program on world religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islamic faiths.

Men of Culture conference scheduled SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. - The Office of Multicultural Student Affairs and Men of Culture Organization at Shippensburg University will sponsor the fourth annual Men of Culture Conference Friday and Saturday, Feb. 6 and 7 in the Cumberland Union Building on the university campus. The theme is "My Brothers are Never Too Heavy" and the program will foster discussion on issues that impact men of culture within the campus community and society at-large.

Jean Elizabeth Gilbert, 89, of Silver Spring, Md., and formerly of Williamsport, Md., died Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2012, at Casey House in Rockville, Md. Born April 13, 1923, in Hagerstown, Md., she was the daughter of the late George Edgar and Anna Isabelle Bowers Harne. She was preceded in death by her former husband, Donald D. Gilbert, on Aug. 19, 1995. She graduated in 1941 from Hagerstown High School. She was retired from Fairchild Corporation. She was a member of Church of the Brethren.

In my last column, I started to present a blueprint for redeveloping downtown Hagerstown . The blueprint is based on a March 2005 Brookings Institution report by Christopher Leinberger titled “Turning around Downtown: Twelve Steps to Revitalization.” That column presented the six steps that must be taken by local government to create an environment conducive to revitalization of downtown. Step 1: Capture the Vision. The Goal, Objective & Strategy Statement announced by the City and the Economic Development Commission does articulate a vision, but it does not provide enough direction to be considered a strategic plan.

Some use sick days when they aren't ill Do you ever call in sick when you're not sick? More than a third of workers, or 35 percent, said they had done so at least once in the past year, according to a poll by CareerBuilder.com , a job search site based in Chicago. Ten percent said they'd done it three or more times. Why? A quarter of the workers said they consider sick days equivalent to vacation time and treat them as such. Twenty percent said they called in sick simply because they didn't feel like going to work that day. Study: Most student accounts are current The warnings over the past few years about college students getting too deeply into credit card debt might be sinking in. A study of about 310,000 credit card accounts found little difference in the way students and older adults use their credit cards.

 In Carol Larese Millward's novel, "Star in the Middle," teen mother Star raises her child while also dealing with the everyday stresses that come with being a teenage girl. On top of that, the baby's father absolutely refuses to admit that the baby is even his. Millward said the main point to writing her first young adult novel was that she wanted teenagers to be more aware of teen pregnancy. "I wanted to raise that awareness," Millward said in a telephone interview from her Elkton, Md., home.

When Librarian Sherri Maret came to work at Chambersburg Area Senior High School a few years ago, the fiction collection wasn't large. Circulation numbers indicated that students were checking out about 1,000 titles a year. With the help of about $8,000 from the community, Maret ordered more fiction. Circulation doubled the first year. By now, it has quadrupled. If you buy the books, the readers will come, Maret says. Popular young-adult authors include: Lois Duncan, Caroline B. Cooney, Joan Lowery Nixon.

MARTINSBURG - Matt Hilliard would like the young and young at heart to join him Thursday to chalk one up for art. They'll get to chalk up a piece of the pavement around the patio of the Martinsburg-Berkeley County Public Library. "I'm expecting a diversity of people," said the 20-year-old aspiring artist from Kearneysville, W.Va. He came up with the idea of what will literally be a sidewalk art show beginning at 11 a.m. Young Adult Librarian Jane Levitan said she hopes it will give people a new perspective of the library as a place to have some fun. "For our young adults, it's the grand finale of our summer program," Levitan said of the event, adding that it is not limited to the young.

For the first time in nine years, the number of Maryland juveniles arrested for violent crime has fallen, with sharp drops in the number arrested for murder, car theft and rape. Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening's administration is claiming credit, but before we agree, we have some questions. The first is whether it's possible juvenile arrests are declining because the number of juveniles has temporarily declined. Anyone who's every had to deal with school redistricting issues knows the number of youths in the state is not constant.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. -- Police cited seven young adults for underage consumption of alcohol at a Martinsburg-area club that apparently promoted a "reunion" party on the Internet, Berkeley County Sheriff Kenneth M. Lemaster Jr. said Tuesday. The citations were issued on Saturday morning by members of the West Virginia State Police and the Berkeley County Sheriff's Department at The Martinsburg Drink at 1179 Winchester Ave., Sheriff Kenneth M. Lemaster Jr. said. The police went to the club about 1 a.m. after a West Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control Administration investigator requested assistance, Lemaster said.